


at once i knew i was not magnificent

by wishie



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Break Up, F/M, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15411234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishie/pseuds/wishie
Summary: Soulmates make romance easier, but they are not, after all, a guarantee. Richie finds this out the hard way, and Eddie realizes the problems with forever. (Or, Richie and Eddie fall apart.)





	1. if you're in love then you're the lucky one

**Author's Note:**

> world based vaguely off of the one in @letterfromathief’s OUAT fic foxtrot uniform charlie kilo, an overall solid soulmate read.  
> title from bon iver’s holocene  
> this is marginally unedited, read at your own risk

(The problem with promising forever to somebody is that you never really mean forever.)

They break up on a Tuesday. Richie knows it’s a Tuesday because Eddie has his Development class that day, and Richie always waits for him outside the class before they go and have lunch at the small cafe down the street, with the marigolds in the flower boxes, always at the little corner table next to the window.

They don’t go to lunch. Eddie kisses him one last time, with lips that are still wet from tears, and Richie wants to cry but the tears don’t come, and Eddie’s the one who always cries in public anyway.

He goes to his dorm, the lights still turned out from this morning when he’d bounced out of bed, the sheets still pulled all the way down, and lies on the bed. He stays like this for nearly a week, at which point Stan decides it’s time for Richie to get a move on.

“Come out with us this weekend,” Stan says.

“Is Eddie gonna be there?” Richie asks, and Stan’s face answers his question. “I’m not going.”

Stan doesn’t try to argue his case.

Richie wants to lie on his bed until the end of time, but Tuesday comes and he finds himself on autopilot, dressing and heading for his door. His fingers falter on the doorknob when he remembers that Eddie won’t be waiting for him, won’t look up at him with that bright, bright smile Richie always felt was _his_. No part of Eddie is _his_ anymore.

He goes and sits at the corner table, so as not to break routine, and Eddie doesn’t show up, not that Richie expects him to. Richie orders a ham sandwich and folds his hands in front of him on the table, willing himself not to cry. His soul mark is visible, the thin, black, slightly iridescent band on his wrist more a taunt than anything else. He pulls his sleeve down.

He wonders if Eddie has already gotten his soul mark removed, or tattooed over. He thinks about the plans not-quite sketched out but talked about, road trips and weddings and floor plans for apartments, and thinks he can feel a little piece of him dying.

Stan tells him to not let this stop him from living his life.

“Plenty of people live without their soulmates,” Stan says, sending Richie inspirational articles on how soulmates aren’t the end-all be-all, and Richie looks at Stan’s soul mark pointedly. Stan just shrugs. “Soulmates aren’t a guarantee and you know it.”

Richie’s not sure he does know it, but he doesn’t say anything.

When he’s alone, he’ll pull his sleeve up, take his bracelets off, and stare at his mark so hard he can fancy the skin tingling, like he can will Eddie to know that Richie still _cares_ , that Richie is still _here_ , that Richie would drop the _world_ if Eddie still needed it.

Eddie never sends any thoughts back. Richie thinks Eddie may have purposely severed the link, just reached out and mentally snapped it.

He tells himself he doesn’t care.

It gets hard to not care, some days, when his lab partner in Chem babbles on and on about her soulmate, some girl Richie’d gone to high school with.

“Do you know _your_ soulmate?” she asks, and Richie wonders if she knows that he dated her soulmate a couple years back. Probably not.

“It’s complicated,” he says, smiling awkwardly and trying to be nice. She leaves him alone.

(It’s hard to think of the person he’d used to be, when at fourteen, he’d been talking about how he couldn’t wait to meet his soulmate. No one had listened to him, but he’d kept talking anyway. “I’ll bet my soulmate is the best person in the world, and we’ll be perfect together. They’ll be the Isolde to my Tristan, the peanut butter to my chocolate, the Juliet to my Romeo—”

“Yes, because six people dying in three days is the height of romance,” Stan said.

“They’ll understand,” Richie sniffed, “When I meet them. They’ll be the Guinevere to my Lancelot, and I’ll sweep them onto my horse and we’ll ride off into the sunset.”

“I think we need to reevaluate your understanding of Arthurian romance,” Ben had said.

“I think we need to reevaluate that you even _have_ an understanding of Arthurian romance,” Richie said, in the exact same tone.

“Leave Ben alone,” Stan said, “He’s just sad because his soulmate has no idea he exists.”

“We’re going to be together some day,” Ben said, defensively. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“That’s… really creepy, Haystack, but you do you,” Richie said, patting him on the head. “See, Stan? Ben believes in love. As do I. Just you all wait. Someday my soulmate and I will have a romance for the fucking _ages_ —”)

It’s hard to keep running when every breath hurts like hell, but Richie manages it. Slowly, he can feel himself coming back, stops measuring the time by Days Since The Break Up.

The weeks turn into months. He finally takes Stan’s advice, takes to wearing armbands, bracelets. He stacks hair ties on his wrist up to his elbow until his fingers turn purple and Stan nearly cuts them all off, because hiding his soul mark doesn’t mean it has to be _boring_ , right?

He invests in jackets, the most ridiculous ones he can find at the thrift stores on campus. Discount kimonos and baja ponchos and windbreakers from the eighties, all with sleeves long enough to cover his wrists, his hands, and half of Egypt.

Eventually, it becomes less about covering his soul mark and more about _finding himself_ , the kind of self-discovery he hadn’t been able to do his entire adolescence because living in a small town didn’t lend itself to things like novelty bangle bracelets and vintage ushankas advertised with “real mink fur.” Richie grows his hair out around his ears, down his neck until it frizzes around his head like he’s been fucked in a tornado. He vibes to SZA and smokes weed with Bev, and before he knows it, he’s almost forgotten all about Eddie.

Their friends, to their credit, accept this change as gamely as they can. They split their time between Richie and Eddie, and, for the most part, the divide is clean. (He tries not to think about what Eddie is doing, the nights Richie is with their friends.) He drinks until he can’t see straight, swears loudly and has more meaningless sex than he’d care to admit, and before he knows it, a full year has passed, to the day, that Richie and Eddie broke things off.

He only knows this because his soul mark reminds him, glowing brightly and burning like hell, so hot that Richie swears and grabs at his wrist.

“You okay?” Ben asks, concerned.

“It’s—“ Richie hisses. “My damn soul mark. Feels like it’s on fire.”

“Oh,” Ben falters, because Richie tries to never bring up his soul mark, or his soulmate. Bev is more equipped, and tosses him some aloe vera. It _sort of_ works, in that it cools down his wrist, so he rubs it into his soul mark, ignoring how sad Ben looks when he pulls the sleeve of his discount kimono back down to cover it.

Stan yanks open the door and sort of falls in, already half-drunk.

“Where’s your better half?” Richie asks, and Stan pauses. There’s a world in that pause, and despite himself, Richie’s heart sinks as it always does, when Eddie comes into question.

“Of course,” Richie says, pretends that his world hadn’t just faltered before his eyes. “You coming with us tonight, Manley?”

“Why the hell not,” Stan says. “The night’s still young.”

“Yes,” Richie cheers, quietly—because there _are_ people trying to study on this floor, as he learned the hard way when Penelope Vance cracked an egg on his head after a party once—but happily.

They go to the party, and there’s a huge-ass bong being passed around, and Richie feels himself relax into the chair. No crossfading today, he’s got a test tomorrow, and he hasn’t studied at all, but this? This he can handle, and it feels nice.

It doesn’t last long.

His wrist begins to smart, underneath his bracelets and sleeve, even worse than last time, and Richie has to control his breathing. It smarts—tingles— _burns_. Dimly, he spots Stan across the room, making out with Bill against a desk, and if _Bill’s_ here then it means—

Eddie Kaspbrak is standing in the door.

He’s not _standing_ so much as _leaning_ , and it would be hard to miss the frat boy, his hand on the doorframe next to Eddie. The frat boy leans in, and Eddie leans up. Richie swallows, hard, looks away, and goes home with the first girl who bats her eyes in his direction.

He’s not proud. Far from it.

When he wakes up the next morning, it’s to a soul mark that’s changed color entirely, from the sort-of subtle black it was before to a luminescent, bright white, the same color as the pairs of wings on Stan and Bill’s collarbones. This is a soul mark that demands to be seen, to be shown off, and Richie gets dressed, the quickest he’s ever, and leaves before his one-night-stand wakes up.

He calls Stan on the way back to his dorm.

“Do soul marks change color?” He asks, his voice edging somewhere between panicked and anxious.

“ _I don’t think so_ ,” Stan says. “ _But Google is free, asswipe._ ”

“Thanks for nothing,” Richie says. “Who pissed in your coffee this morning?”

Stan is silent for a moment, and Richie thinks he’s hung up the phone before he finally says, “ _I have another soul mark_.”

“What the fuck?” Richie stops short at that. “You can have more than one?”

“ _Apparently,_ ” Stan says dryly. “ _Bill has one too. In the same place._ ”

“That’s… interesting,” Richie says. “Sounds like a you problem, though. Richie’s got his own shit to work out.”

Stan hangs up on him then, which normally Richie would text and call him an asshole, but Stan sounds stressed out enough. Richie passes by a group of girls on his way back, and pulls his sleeves down further, as though the brightness of his new soul mark can shine through hair ties and bracelets and sleeves.

His parents call. They say they’re excited for Richie to come home in a couple months, for the summer, and as always, they ask about Eddie, ask when he’ll come to visit next, and Richie has to swallow hard, like always, when he says that Eddie is _fine, just busy, and I’ll be sure to tell him you said hello_.

He doesn’t know why he hasn’t told them.

Well, that’s a lie. He does.

(He still remembers being five years old, his parents tucking him into bed, telling him about soulmates.

“We were soulmates,” Maggie Tozier had said, looking at her husband fondly.

“She was the prettiest girl in the room,” Wentworth smiled at his wife. “We made eye contact—“

“—And the world exploded into color,” Maggie said, laughing. “It was kismet.”

Richie had been too caught up in the story itself to ask what _kismet_ meant. “Will I meet _my_ soulmate someday?” He remembered asking, eyes wide.

“Of course you will,” his father leaned down and ruffled his hair. “Don’t even worry your little head about it, Richie.” His mother had kissed his forehead and flicked off the light, leaving him in the darkness, and five-year-old Richie’d stared up at the ceiling and wondered what his soulmate would look like. What they’d _be_ like.)

He takes a shower and sits on his bed, stares into his hands. The soul mark hangs in his vision, just below his line of sight, taunting him. Had this been a little over a year prior, Richie probably would have been thrilled.

 _Look, Eds_ , he would’ve said. _We’re special_.

And Eddie would’ve sighed, a long, withdrawn sound of exasperation, but with that small smile on his face, the _you’re-being-an-idiot-but-I-love-you-anyway_ smile, and Richie would’ve kissed him into the bed.

Richie doesn’t even notice that he’s crying until the first tears land on his hands. It’s the first he’s cried since the breakup, and tears turn into full sobs that rip through his chest and leave him feeling drained and empty.

 _But we were timeless_ , Richie thinks, helplessly. _Untouchable. The eye of the storm_.

 _The problem_ , he can hear Eddie saying, _is that storms end_.

 

* * *

 

Eddie’s blocked him on Instagram.

 

* * *

 

There’s a certain dance that comes with breaking it off with someone. Practiced laughter, step to the right, avoiding the whys of it all. When Richie gets sick of dancing this humiliation conga, he goes out and gets very, very drunk, and a dim part of him thinks that maybe this is just another step to the dance. _Take it back, now, y’all._ He looks ridiculous, after all, tie around the top of his head like an expensive sweatband for the super rich, shirtsleeves unbuttoned and cuffed above his elbow, the perfect frat boy uniform. (If only he was in a frat.)

None of the literature prepared him for this, he thinks. The eventuality of “what happens if you break up with your soulmate.” He’s sure it’s happened before, but if it has no one’s cared to write about it, or to write about it in a way other than “all soulmates fall back together in the end.” He doesn’t think he likes the implication that he and Eddie will get back together.

He’s not sure why, but the idea of Eddie being his soulmate fills him with a steadily growing unease, seated deep inside that doesn’t go away.

He doesn’t tell anyone about it. That doesn’t mean they don’t _ask_ , of course—

“Have you talked to Eddie?” Ben asks.

“Fuck off,” Richie says, trying to hide his discomfort under bristling aggression. Ben either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because he presses on.

“I just think, if your soul marks changed color…”

“I said, fuck off,” Richie says.

“…shouldn’t you _talk_ to him—“

“What the _fuck_ does _fuck off_ mean to you?” Richie snaps. “Am I speaking French or something? Talking out of my _fucking_ ass?”

“Don’t talk to him like that,” Bev says. “You don’t have to be a jackass.”

“Whatever,” Richie says. “I’m getting a cigarette.”

Once he’s outside, cigarette in his fingers, he can feel his anger melting away, replaced with irritation and regret. He should go back inside, maybe, apologize—

“Girl trouble?”

He turns, only to be greeted with tall, dark, and handsome. Maybe _too_ handsome, but nobody ever complained about a sympathetic-looking stranger being _too handsome_.

“You could say that,” Richie says. “But my problems are a little more Achillean.” He holds out his cigarette. “Got a light?”

“Don’t smoke,” the other guy digs a lighter out of his pocket. Richie catches it.

“Why do you have a lighter if you don’t smoke?” He strikes it. Once, twice, until the little flame blooms at the top. Richie watches it for a second, the metal growing warm under his thumb, before lighting his cigarette in one smooth, deft motion.

“Just in case some pretty boy like you asks for a light,” Mr. Handsome says, catching the lighter. “And you’re the prettiest one I’ve seen so far.”

Richie smiles. “What’s your name?” He asks. “I can’t keep calling you ‘Mister Handsome’ in my head.”

“Mike Hanlon,” he says, grinning.

“Pretty close,” Richie says, giving Mike the once-over, and Mike just laughs.

 

* * *

 

Eddie’s contact name has mysteriously vanished from his Discord.

 

* * *

 

Mike is good. Mike is _really_ good, and Richie can’t help but compare him to Eddie.

He can’t help but notice that Mike always asks about his day. Shows interest in his life and the things he loves. He drags Mike to the comic book store he works at sometimes and Mike patiently spends the day with him, looking through comics and laughing.

It’s all purely platonic, in the sense that there’s not a whole lot of romance involved, but the sexual tension is rampant and there, and Bev tips her sunglasses down to look at him skeptically when he says that he and Mike aren’t dating.

“We’re not,” Richie says. “We’re just having a little fun, that’s all. He has a soulmate.”

“So do you,” Bev says.

“He’s never met his,” Richie says. “Just a couple soul marks. One’s on his ankle, the other’s on—“

Mike sits himself down next to Richie. “What’s this about my ankle?”

“Your soul mark,” Richie clarifies.

“Oh, yeah,” Mike says. He nudges Richie’s shoulder with his own. “What about yours?”

“My wrist,” Richie says. “You have to have seen it.”

“I’ve seen a lot more than your wrists,” Mike says, utterly deadpan, and Bev throws her head back and laughs.

“I like this guy,” she says. She leans across the table. “But the less said about Richie’s soulmate, the better.”

“Why’s that?” Mike asks, furrowing his brow.

It’s really the worst possible timing, because Richie spots Bill and Eddie across the dining hall, and he knows that if Bill sees Bev he’ll beeline to her. He grabs Mike’s wrist. “We’re gonna go,” he says to Bev.

“I just got here,” Mike says.

“Take your food with you, then,” Richie says.

They don’t _quite_ make it, and Richie suffers through the most awkward eye contact he’s ever had.

“ _That’s_ your soulmate,” Mike says. “The little one in the polo who still looks like he’s in high school?”

“That would be the one,” Richie says.

“And were you in love?” Mike asks, unwrapping his sandwich on the way.

“Desperately.”

“Why’d you break up?”

“Fuck if I know,” Richie says. “He’s an asshole. Let’s just go, okay?”

“Alright,” Mike smiles at him. There’s a little mayonnaise on the edge of his mouth, and Richie uses his thumb to wipe at it.

“You were telling me about your family farm earlier?”

 

* * *

 

 _“I love you,” Richie says. “I love you so much that sometimes it feels like I’m just—it feels like I’m going to die because of how much I love you, which is stupid, because nobody’s ever died from loving someone too much, but it’s—when I said you were bad for my health I_ meant _it. I look at you and… and my heart explodes.”_

_“Would you give it up, if you could?” Eddie asks, softly._

_“No,” Richie says. “Never. Not for… not for all the money in the world, Eds, nothing could ever make me stop loving you.”_

_Eddie blinks. “What does it feel like?”_

_“Are you saying you don’t feel it,” Richie teases, only for Eddie to flush angry-red._

_“No, of course not,” he says. “I’m just curious.”_

_“It feels like fire,” Richie says. “Like rain, like… you’re the sun and you’re burning up my entire world, slowly. I fell in love with you because you’re bright, you know.”_

_“Bright?”_

_“Bright,” he confirms. “You smile and the world just lights up. Because I’ve only seen that brightness,” he cups Eddie’s cheek, “a couple of times but I would chase that brightness to the ends of the world, as long as you kept on laughing.”_

 

* * *

 

He tries to check Eddie’s Facebook, only to find that Eddie has blocked him there too.

 

* * *

 

Mike texts him to ask how his day was. It’s so sweet, so simple, so _jarring_ that Richie just stares at the text for a while. He can’t remember the last time someone asked him about his day—more specifically, he doesn’t think Eddie ever did. 

 _What is it_ , Mike sends, when Richie doesn’t respond.

 _Nothing_ , Richie types, grinning like an idiot. _You’re great, that’s all_.

 

* * *

 

“You seem happy,” Stan says.

“So happy,” Richie says, letting some of this happiness infuse his voice.

They’re sitting in the library. Stan is studying for Bio—although the word studying should be used loosely. Richie’s just tagged along for the ride, and true to form is leaning back in his chair, the chair balancing on the two back legs.

“I know Bill was worried.”

“Yeah, Bill was worried,” he snorts, pushing his hair back. “You don’t have to lie to me, Stan.”

“You see a future with this guy?” Stan asks. Richie considers this. Does he see a future with Mike?

“Not in the way you’re thinking?” Richie says, the end of his statement going up like a question. “He’s a good friend. I trust him, and I know I can rely on him, and the sex is amazing, but… he’s got a soulmate.”

“So do you,” Stan says.

“Why does everyone keep saying that,” Richie grumbles. “It’s different, okay? He’s the hopeless romantic type—“

“—and you’re not?” Stan raises an eyebrow. “I’ve known you since we were little and I’ve never known you to be anything _but_ a hopeless romantic.”

“You could call me a romantic?” Richie suggests, righting his chair. “I’m a simple soul, but I’m not hopeless. I know you love Eddie, but I’m starting to realize that our relationship wasn’t great.”

“I’m glad you’ve finally come around to that,” Stan says. “Take it from me, your oldest friend—“

“—you’re not my oldest friend, Ben is—“

“—you were miserable,” he continues.

Richie tugs at his sleeve. His wrist is burning again.

_“So… how was your day?” Richie tries._

_They’re sitting in the cafe, and Eddie is… not talking. Richie’s tried a couple times to start conversation, but all of it’s fallen somewhat short. It’s funny, he thinks, how someone can be just across a table but feel a million miles away._

“He changed,” Richie says, and when Stan makes a little noise of confusion, elaborates. “Eddie changed.”

“How so?”

“In the beginning, he was… it… our relationship was easier,” Richie says. “We’d just gotten together and everything was… I was on cloud nine, you remember that.”

Stan murmurs assent.

“And I guess on some level I knew his psycho mom had done some number on him somehow, or that he wasn’t really a person who showed a whole lot of affection, but I knew he loved me, I could point to things he did and go, yeah.”

_“Anything interesting happen?” He tries again. Eddie shrugs, a noncommittal motion. Richie gives up. The marigolds in the window are blooming and beautiful, and somehow, watching them grow is more interesting than whatever’s on his seat mate’s mind._

“Towards the end, it was just… in a million small ways, I knew he didn’t care, and if someone asked if he loved me, I’d just… I didn’t know,” he closes his eyes. “I wasn’t even the one who wanted to end it.”

Stan shrugs. “It happens.”

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do with his birthday present,” Richie says, a joke that falls flat.

_“I have to go, soon,” Richie says._

_“Okay,” Eddie says. Richie watches him as the waitress takes away his mostly uneaten sandwich._ Say something, _he wants to scream._ Show some emotion, dammit!

_“Nothing else going on with you?” Richie tries, one last time._

_“No,” Eddie says, and there’s a note of finality in it._

“Don’t give it to him,” Stan says. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

“I guess that’s fair,” Richie says, but there’s still this uneasy feeling in his gut, like something is missing.

“Tell me more about Mike,” Stan says.

“He’s funny,” Richie says, uneasiness forgotten. “And smart, and _really_ nice. Like, too nice, almost, he’s a personification of the cinnamon roll meme, I tease him for it all the time—“

 

* * *

 

The next night, after far too much tequila and the echoes of someone grabbing mindlessly at his shoulders, he calls his parents.

“Eddie and I broke up,” he tells them, surprisingly coherent.

“ _You did?_ ” His mom sounds stunned. “ _I’ve never heard of soulmates breaking up… is this a prank?_ ”

“ _What’s that?_ ” Through the line, he can hear his dad in the background. “ _Richie and Eddie broke up? Are you sure you heard him right?_ ”

Maggie ignores him. “ _How badly did you screw up?_ ”

“Why do you assume I was the one who screwed up?” Richie asks, annoyed. “Things didn’t work out. Things don’t work out in relationships sometimes.”

“ _Not—not when_ soulmates _are involved, Richie, soulmates are supposed to make all those things irrelevant._ ”

“Well, it wasn’t,” Richie tells his perfectly-matched mother, trying hard to ignore the sting of tears at the back of his throat. “It wasn’t, and he was an asshole, and things didn’t work out, okay? I’m—“ his voice breaks. “I have to go.”

“ _No, Richie, wait_ —“

He hangs up.

Sometimes fairytales aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

He calls Mike instead. Mike shows up within the hour, letting himself in and sitting next to Richie on the bed. “Everything alright?” He asks, gentle.

“Yeah,” Richie says. “Too much tequila.”

“And?”

“Assholes,” Richie says, lifting an imaginary glass. “It stinks in here.”

“Trust me, I know assholes,” Mike says. “I grew up in a small town.”

“How small is _small_ ,” Richie says. Mike frowns.

“Kissing a thousand,” he says, and Richie lets out a low whistle.

“Why’d your family stay,” he asks. “It can’t have been easy, being black in a tiny town in butt-fuck nowhere Kentucky.”

“My grandfather’s ex-military,” Mike says. “After the war he started a farm. And then we’d put down roots and there was nowhere else to go.”

“Was it bad?”

“Yeah.”

“Like…”

“Trust me,” he says, managing a small smile. “The less I talk about it, the better. I was homeschooled for a reason.”

“You were homeschooled?” Richie wonders. “But you seem so _normal_.”

Mike laughs and bumps Richie’s shoulder. “Bitch.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you,” Richie says, but there’s no heat behind it. He’s just so tired.

“Tequila,” Mike says. “You get sleepy when you drink tequila?”

“I can’t get any sluttier than this,” Richie says, yawning. “Now, Bill. Bill gets slutty when he drinks tequila.”

“I’ll have to meet him,” Mike says. “He sounds like a real party animal.”

“Sometime,” Richie says. “Soon.”

It might be the tequila talking, but Mike looks beautiful like this, framed in the dorm light, and he’s _here_ , and what comes out of Richie’s mouth is, “I love you. _Not_ , not romantically or anything,” he says hurriedly, when Mike stiffens, “Just… I appreciate that you’re in my life and I hope you stay there for a while,” he says, very aware that his mouth is just going to keep running until Mike says something. “Even when you find your soulmate I just want—“

He’s cut off when Mike places a hand over his mouth, smiling. “I care about you, too, Trashmouth.”

Richie walks around in a glow for the next few weeks. Nothing can dampen it, not even finding out that Eddie has blocked Richie on Snapchat. Comparatively, what does one ex blocking him matter? He’s found something good in his life and _that’s_ what he really needs to focus on.

(He ignores the small voice in his head, telling him that he hasn’t really solved anything. That it’s not over yet.)

 

* * *

 

_“_ _Eddie, I love you, but it’s hard sometimes, you know? Sometimes it feels like you’re not even trying.”_

_Eddie sits curled in the window seat of the library, facing outwards. His overlarge sweater is pulled down over his hands, and he looks resigned and lost._

_“Are you even listening to me? Eddie? I—“ He cuts himself off when Eddie turns to face him, expression sad and dark._

_“I don’t know what you_ want _,” Eddie says, sounding like he’s choking on every single word that leaves his mouth. “I’m—I don’t know what to tell you, I’ve just been dealing with a lot of stuff right now.”_

Then let me in _, Richie wants to scream._ Let me help you _. But he doesn’t say it, because he’s already hurt Eddie enough for now. For a lifetime, practically, hadn’t he_ just _broken Eddie’s heart three ways to Sunday? Getting together had been a fight all on its own, and they’d been good, right?_

_So why does it feel like he’s won a battle and lost a war?_

_“It’s not about you,” Eddie says, turning back to face the window._

_“If it were,” Richie starts, his words slow and faltering, “would you tell me?”_

_“You know I would,” Eddie says, and his brown eyes are almost chastising when he says it._

Would you? Would you really? _Richie thinks, but doesn’t say it. Too much of what he wants to say is going unsaid lately. Eddie’s gaze becomes too much to deal with, all of a sudden, and he turns his head away, hating himself all the more for it._

_“What is it?” Eddie asks._

I feel like you’re looking through me _, Richie thinks._ I feel like I don’t matter to you anymore.

_“I can’t help if you don’t say anything,” Eddie says._

You can’t help if I do say it, either _, Richie thinks._ What happened to the person you used to be? _He fiddles with his shirt cuff. His soul mark is on display, shining slightly in the light._ I want to help you, but I know you won’t let me.

I can never seem to figure out what it is you want me to do. What it is you want from me. I can’t read you like you used to, and it’s all my fault. Why won’t you let me in?

_“Good talk, I guess,” Eddie says, turning back to the window._

_Richie wants to scream._

 

* * *

 

“—and that’s how we figured out that Bill’s allergic to strawberries,” Stan says.

“Kinky,” Richie says. “And disturbingly domestic. You’ve gone native. What happened to the cynic I used to know?” He’s teasing, and he thinks Stan knows it, because Stan’s face softens in a way fourteen-year-old Richie would have been actively wary of.

“He grew up,” Stan says, and Richie doesn’t know why this answer makes him so uncomfortable and sad. “How about you? Ending your Peter Pan phase anytime soon?”

“I would’ve,” Richie says, not without annoyance, “If my soulmate hadn’t been an asshole, thanks.”

Stan looks slightly offended. “That’s not what I meant. I meant your new guy.”

“Mike’s actively looking for his soulmate now,” Richie says, “So we’re even less serious than we’ve been. Which is not very, by the way.”

“What’s he looking for?” Stan asks, seemingly more out of politeness than any actual interest. “Color vision, soul scars, marks…?”

“He has a mark,” Richie says. “It didn’t appear until like a year ago, or something like that. He’s got two, actually. One’s a sunflower on his right ankle—“

Stan chokes. “Sorry,” he manages, grabbing a napkin from the center of the table, “Did you say sunflower—?”

“What about it?”

Stan turns slightly and pulls up his pant leg.

“Well, bend me over and fuck me with a chainsaw,” Richie leans back and whistles.

On Stan’s ankle is a sunflower. Richie bets that if he called Mike up and told him to pull up his pant leg, the sunflowers would be identical.

“I don’t suppose this is the part where I tell you that I’m secretly in love with him,” Richie muses.

“…Are you?” Stan asks warily.

“Nah,” Richie says, waving a hand. “He’s all yours. And Bill’s, I’m assuming.”

“Yeah,” Stan says. “God, this is such a fucking mess.”

“Such is life,” Richie says. “And love, I guess. Do you want his number?”

“If you don’t mind,” Stan mutters. “I feel like I’m stealing your boyfriend or something.”

“How many times do I have to tell people we’re not dating?” Richie says, annoyed. “At least now they’ll believe me.”

Stan’s face is changing from shocked horror to something resembling glee, and Richie sits back and smiles.

“I’m happy for you,” Richie says, and he _is_. He just can’t shake the horrible, awful hollow feeling that comes from being the odd one out, can’t shake the feeling that his friends will all abandon him for their own romantic pursuits.

 _Poor Richie_ , he imagines them saying. _He could never hold down a relationship._ He imagines them wondering what was wrong with him. His arm itches and burns, and he fights the urge to scratch at it.

He gives his best stage smile, furnishes Stan with Mike’s phone number, talks to Mike, comes home. It’s only once he’s in his room that he pulls off the layers of bracelets and hair ties that have become his norm to look at his soul mark.

It’s changed color again. Now it’s the color of an oil slick—dark, swirling, iridescent, suffocating. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. It _feels_ heavy, like it’s seeping into his skin.

It is just a reminder of the soulmate who doesn’t want him. (The soulmate who he is no longer sure that he wants, though he hasn’t admitted it out loud.)

 

* * *

 

Richie sits on Bev’s bed. Bev’s already put a sock on her door— _a little presumptuous, don’t you think, he teases, and she throws the closest thing she can find at him, which in this case turns out to be a bra. He catches it and leers at her and she shoves her foot into his face._

“How’d you know my fetish?” Richie wonders, catching her foot in his hands and peering at it. “And your feet are so pretty, too…”

Bev yanks her foot away, disgruntled. “Can’t do anything with you.”

“You can’t do anything without me, either,” Richie says, and she snorts.

“Reverse that and we’re golden,” she says.

“You got me there,” Richie admits.

“I don’t know how I always end up being your therapist,” Bev says. “You and all the other guys.”

“Ah, Bev, you know Ben’s practically his own therapist,” Richie says, in as earnest and innocent a tone as he can manage, and ducks to avoid the red Solo cup thrown his way.

“Sure,” she says. “You both have bottling in common.” She gives him a pointed look.

“I’m just exhausted,” Richie lies. “There’s a lot of exhaustion catching up to me right now.” Bev just gives him a _look_ , like she knows it’s bullshit. Richie sighs and holds out his hand for the bottle of whiskey, and takes a very large swig straight from the bottle.

“Mike found his soulmates,” Richie mumbles. “Plural. As you already know.”

“Are you jealous?”

“No,” Richie says. “Not in the slightest. I just don’t…” He looks away, embarrassed, and says, on mute, “I don’t want to be left alone.”

“Oh, Richie,” Bev sighs, but Richie keeps going.

“And Mike finding his soulmates just reminded me that I _lost_ mine.” He slumps over, hands in his lap, fiddling with the many friendship bracelets on his wrists. “I’ve been telling people he’s an asshole but part of me still doesn’t believe it.”

“He _is_ ,” Bev insists, but Richie shakes his head.

“What if I was just annoying and overwhelming?”

“Then he should’ve told you that instead of leading you on,” she says gently. “He _led you on_ , Rich. He told you he wanted to care more, was going to try harder… it doesn’t matter that you were already dating, or that you were soulmates. You were led on, just like anyone else.”

“I _know_ it’s not true, logically,” he says, “But part of me is like, hey, our relationship failed because I was a shitty boyfriend and a shittier person.”

“Fuck that,” Bev says, and when Richie looks up, her eyes are wide and angry. “You weren’t the only person in your relationship, even if he made you feel that way. This isn’t your fault, he’s just… not a lovable person.”

“It’s not about him being an unlovable person,” Richie says. “I’ve loved plenty of unlovable people, and yeah, none of those worked either, but this is the first time I’ve…” he trails off. “I’ve felt like it was my fault. Like he just slipped through my fingers.”

“Listen to me,” Bev circles her hands around Richie’s wrists, holds them tight. “If he cared, he didn't care enough, didn't care enough to be a decent fucking human being—he just tucked tail and ran, because being a coward was easier than talking to you,” she says. Richie looks down, but Bev takes his chin, tilts it up. “You’re not a shitty person, Richie.”

He doesn’t know what else to do, so he kisses her, desperately, like kissing her will solve all his problems, the black hole inside of him, how ripped open and raw he feels now that everything’s at the surface again. She kisses him back readily, kisses him back to coherency. It’s been a long time since he’s kissed Bev, but it feels familiar, like coming home.

“Better?” she says softly, brushing tears from his face. Richie hadn’t even realized he was crying.

“No,” he says, the sound coming out broken.

“Eddie,” Bev says, “had the most beautiful, amazing thing, and he wasted it. He wasted _you_ , and if I could I would go beat him up right now.”

Richie giggles a little, hollow.

“I love you,” she says, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“You’re my best friend,” he says. “Always putting me back together.”

“What’s a best friend for,” she says. “For what it’s worth, you’re mine, too.”

 

* * *

 

Richie’s heading home, after, and the world must really be against him, because he turns a corner and, wouldn’t luck have it but it’s Eddie Kaspbrak, standing next to a lamppost and fidgeting. It would be a scene out of a goddamn movie, except Richie has to remind himself that his life isn’t fiction.

They lock eyes. It’s as awkward as one might expect, given they haven’t spoken in months.

“Richie,” Eddie says. “I… I’m glad to see you.”

Richie pauses. In what seems like another lifetime, he might’ve said anything along the lines of, _yeah, me too_ , or _I missed you_ , or _I still love you_. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but after his conversation with Bev, he just feels heavy and not in the mood. “You’re… glad to see me,” is what comes out instead.

Eddie nods, a little, slow thing that seems almost unsure of itself.

“You blocked me on everything,” Richie says.

“I needed some time,” Eddie says. “Some… some space, I mean, it’s not illegal to take some space, is it?”

“No, it’s your fucking life,” Richie says. “Why are you even here? You live on the other side of campus.”

“How’d you know?”

“Stan told me.”

There’s a pause in which Eddie sinks down to the curb, staring out at the empty intersection.

“I came to find you,” he says, staring at his hands. “I wanted…” He doesn’t say what he wanted, and Richie doesn’t much care.

“Why’d we break up,” he asks, the question more a statement than anything else.

“I wasn’t ready for the commitment,” Eddie admits.

“You weren’t ready for the commitment,” Richie repeats. Eddie shakes his head.

“It was… some of the things you _said_ and I… I freaked out a little,” he says. “You just loved me so much and it didn’t _feel_ like…”

“Like it was supposed to?” Richie says, dry as the Mojave.

“I guess I was waiting for fireworks,” Eddie says softly. “For everything to click into place.” There’s a world in those words. A world that Richie…

“I thought we _were_ fireworks,” Richie bursts out, and there’s an awful second where he thinks he’s going to cry. An awful second where he thinks _Eddie_ is going to cry.

“We _are_ ,” Eddie says. “I know that _now_.”

“After—after what?” Richie laughs a little, hysterically, hands going to his hair because this is what he _wanted_ , right? But if this is what he wanted, why does it feel so hollow? Why does he feel _nothing_? “After cutting me to the wind? Letting me dangle for… for fuck knows how long?”

“I didn’t _let you dangle_ ,” Eddie says. “I told you what was going on, didn’t I?” He looks so small and pathetic, curled on the curb, his shorts not-quite long enough, that Richie can’t muster up any kind of meaningful anger anymore.

“I…” Richie sighs. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

“God,” Eddie says, “Can you forgive me?” There is a beat, a twinge of something, an impulse to sweep the smaller boy into his arms. But then all Richie can see is the cafe, and the corner table, and his uneaten ham sandwich, and the marigolds, in the window, vibrant and yellow and orange and _alive_.

“No,” Richie says, “I don’t think I can—“ And then there is something else, something distinct like the marigolds, and it is _Richie_ , not the awful, shrinking violet he once became around Eddie, whose wrist burns with the effort of saying, “I didn’t want a soulmate anyway.”

There is a silence.

Richie chances a glance at his wrist.

His soul mark is gone.


	2. quiet when i'm coming home, and i'm on my own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Putting oneself together is, after all, a part of life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been almost a year, and this got kind of fragmented towards the end, but here it is. reviewers noirepiaf and cole: thank you, for giving me some of the inspiration to move forward. (and, yes, i n f i n i t e DRAGON DREAM FEET is a real video.)

(The problem with promising forever to someone is that you never really mean forever.)

Eddie breaks up with Richie on a Tuesday. It takes him a whole year to realize he’s made a mistake.

 

* * *

 

At five, Eddie Kaspbrak learns about soulmates in kindergarten. Everyone has one, says Mrs. Taylor, with the sweetest smile on her face. It’s the person you’re meant to be with for your entire life, and when you meet them, there will be a sign, if there isn’t already one.

She asks if anyone has a soul mark, or if they’ve already met their soulmate, and only one hand in the room goes up, a little girl who has a name on the back of her neck. The teacher assures her that she’ll find her soulmate, because how could she _not_ , and Eddie feels that like a knife to the back of his own throat.

When he goes home, he’s freaking out over what-ifs and nevers and somedays, and his mother takes one look at him and tells him he’ll be okay. He lets himself be soothed as she tells him that he doesn’t need a soulmate, that he has her, and he has school, and he doesn’t need to worry about soulmates for _at_ least _twenty years, Eddie, you’re just a late bloomer, my special, special boy._

By the time he gets back to school the next day, he’s not worrying anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

When Eddie is eleven, he figures out he’s gay.

This isn’t a _huge revelation_ or anything. He’s sort of always known he was different, all the way back to preschool. He doesn’t make a big deal over it. He just comes to the realization and then moves on.

It’s just as well, because that’s the year his elementary school funnels into a bigger middle school, and that’s the year he meets Bill Denbrough.

Bill is a taller boy with a stutter in his voice but not in his heart, as Eddie soon figures out. Eddie and Bill are instantaneous best friends, and Eddie’s mom _loves_ Bill, and likes that Eddie has finally made friends with a nice boy.

Bill becomes Eddie’s first crush. Eddie’s eyes linger on Bill’s hairline, or his eyelashes, or… Eddie can’t really pinpoint what it is about Bill that makes Eddie want to like him. When Eddie confesses, later on, Bill pats him on the shoulder and says he’s waiting for his soulmate.

They both eventually put the incident out of mind entirely, but after, Eddie dislikes the idea of soulmates even more.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t like the idea of soulmates,” Eddie says, at fourteen, fresh out of middle school and riding high on the slight independence that high school has managed to bring. “I mean, a… _sign_ , _telling you_ who you’re supposed to love? A _random_ sign?”

Fourteen-year-old Bill shrugs, scratching absentmindedly at his soul mark, which is a a pair of wings on his collarbone. “Y-You d-d-don’t have a m-mar-mark.”

“You’re saying I’d like the idea if I already had a mark?” Eddie demands, hackles rising.

“That’s n-not what I’m s-s-say-saying,” Bill says. His stutter is even more pronounced today, and long used to this, Eddie just sits and waits. “B-But y-you can see c-c-color, you d-d-don’t have a m-mark, y-you don’t have any-any-ny-anyone’s thoughts in y-your h-h-head…”

“You’re saying that because everything _seems_ to be in order now, I’m just nervous,” Eddie summarizes, and Bill nods.

“I’ve b-been waiting for my soulmate s-s-since I was l-l-lit-little,” Bill says. He sits up a little straighter, his eyes filled with that light that they always have whenever the topic of soulmates comes up. “I c-can’t wait to meet her.”

Eddie frowns. “I can’t imagine what that feels like.”

 

* * *

 

At seventeen, riding low in the wake of his first heartbreak, Eddie is reconsidering his stance on not just soulmates, but love in general.

“It’ll b-be fine,” Bill says.

“Tell that to Adrian,” Eddie says desultorily. “He’s going to spread rumors about me, just you wait.”

“Like _what_ ,” Bill says. “This is a fairly p-progressive town, what’s the worst he could say? It’s not like he can out you, you’re already out…”

As it turns out, the worst Adrian could say is that Eddie is bad in the sack.

“We didn’t even have _sex_ ,” Eddie wails.

“At least your mom d-didn’t find out,” Bill consoles him.

“If my soulmate is going to be like this, I’m not sure I want a soulmate,” Eddie says, glaring at the wall.

“Jury’s still out on whether you have one or not,” Bill says.

“Same for _you_ ,” Eddie points out, and Bill just drags his shirt collar down so the wings are exposed.

“She’s out there somewhere,” Bill says, confident. “I’ll find her.”

“Love is bullshit,” Eddie mutters. “I’m just glad we’ll be out of here in a year.”

 

* * *

 

At nineteen, Eddie is in college and seriously reconsidering all the life decisions he’s made that have led him to his point.

Bill’s met his soulmate, some kid named Stan, and they met at the ledge, a concrete shelf that juts out over the large lake that dominates what would be the east side of the city. Stan had his shirt off, and Bill was staring before he realized that the pair of wings on Stan’s collarbone was, in fact, not a tattoo. Bill had pulled his shirt off in that one-handed motion of the hurried and walked over to Stan and introduced himself.

Now, Bill is convinced that Eddie needs to get out there and _live, man_.

No, Eddie says, What I need to do is pass my classes.

That’s dumb, Bill says.

So against his better judgement, he’s let Bill drag him to a party. In someone’s dorm room, spilling out into the hallway and another couple dorm rooms. The carpet is sticky with spilled alcohol and he really doesn’t envy the people who will have to clean this all up—there isn’t even a custodial staff for the dorms, so someone’s RA will be _really_ pissed tomorrow.

As it is, Eddie downs his cup, throws it in a nearby trashcan, and pushes through the crowd, looking for Bill.

He nearly bumps into some kid holding two cups and laughing raucously, and makes awkward eye contact with him. The guy’s cute, with hair that looks like he’s just been fucked in a tornado, if a little… blackout drunk, and Eddie just mumbles an apology and makes to push his way through the crowd.

“No problem, cutie,” the tall kid says, loudly and surprisingly coherently. “Here,” he shoves one of the plastic cups into Eddie’s hand, and Eddie thanks him before moving on.

He drinks that cup and three more, dances with a few strangers, and makes out with a random drunk guy before finding Bill, making out with Stan against a desk. Eddie groans, throws his empty cup at them, and turns around to go back to his dorm.

Eddie’s loathe to admit he actually had some fun, but he’s also kind of tired and a little drunk, not used to drinking at all, much less mystery concoctions with fifty percent alcohol content. He settles into his bed and watches _The Office_ to calm himself down a little.

At around eleven fifty-five, his wrist starts stinging, like he’s getting a tattoo over a sunburn. Eddie frowns at his wrist, shaking it. When a couple minutes pass, and nothing changes, he’s just about to go to the bathroom and splash some cold water on it when, out of nowhere, a thin black band fades into view on his wrist, his heart giving a telltale _swoop_. It stops stinging.

On a hunch, Eddie looks at the clock.

It’s midnight.

Of course it is. And he _knows_ , without a shadow of a doubt, that he met his soulmate at the party. Out of all the fucking soulmate indicators. He shoves his laptop out of the way and crawls under his blankets, falling asleep. He’ll deal with this in the morning, when he’s a little more sober.

It’s a mark of the person he is that he feels not a flash of excitement, but of dread.

 

* * *

 

At twenty, Eddie is staring down at a fragmented soul mark and cursing himself out. It’s still the color it’s always been—dull black, like a hair tie—but unlike a hair tie, it fades in places, breaks off in others. It looks like nothing so much as a ring of dirt around his wrist, only Eddie knows that no amount of scrubbing will get rid of it.

Instagram. Snapchat. Facebook. Eddie unblocks him on all those things just to trace his eyes over Richie’s face, goes back months through his feed just to look for traces of Eddie still in his life.

There aren’t many. In every picture that Richie isn’t wearing sleeves, he’s got mountains of bracelets and hair ties stacked on his wrist, and Eddie looks at his own wrist, piled with rubber bracelets from the student union, of charities and presidential candidates he’s never even heard of, and doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry about the dramatic irony.

He thinks about how he used to pick fights with Richie just _because_ he wanted to see if Richie could get mad at him. He thinks about letting Richie feel unloved and unwanted, thinks about the missed calls he let gather in his mailbox.

Some things just fall apart, he thinks, and sometimes, we break them ourselves.

 

* * *

 

Eddie calls him again. He’s been doing that a lot lately—as soon as he can’t deal with the silence of his room, the thoughts running double-time through his mind, the knowledge that Richie is listening to this song or that song on Spotify.

“I love you,” he says, as soon as Richie picks up.

“Eddie,” Richie sighs. “We talked about this.”

“You’re my best friend,” Eddie continues, hearing the hysteria in his own voice and not able to do anything to curb it.

“You should have thought of that before you cut me off for months,” Richie says. “Before you decided you were just going to make the choices for the both of us.”

“I just don’t,” Eddie’s breath catches. “I want to fix things.”

“I don’t know how you can do that,” Richie says. “I’m going to go, Eddie.”

“No, wait,” Eddie says, clutching the phone tighter. There’s a shaky sigh on the other end of the phone.

“I have to go,” Richie repeats. “I can’t do this. It’s… this is hard, Eddie. You just… you call, and you talk to me for two hours, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to just forgive you. I don’t think I can.

“Moving on is going to take time. This whole thing. It’s going to take time,” Richie says. “I know you miss me. I know you love me. But sometimes, when you tell people to leave, they do.”

Eddie feels frozen, stuck. He can’t make his mouth move. He feels paralyzed. And then the call disconnects, with a telltale beep, and he feels himself come undone.

 

* * *

 

When Eddie hears that Richie is dating someone, he cries until his breath is coming in gasping pants, until his face feels raw and split open.

It’s not even the first time.

Richie finding someone shouldn’t be such a shock to the system. Eddie reflects that Richie has always been open and magnetic to people, the type of boy everyone couldn’t _help_ but fall in love with. Richie, the kind of charismatic Eddie could only hope to be someday.

He has so many questions. He doesn’t even really know _who_ it is Richie is dating—he feels like he’s seen her around campus a couple times, and she’s…

She’s pretty. She laughs a lot. She cracks jokes like Richie, and she’s long-limbed and loose like he is, similarly chaotic. He sees them spill out of a frat house one night, and despite himself, he stays long enough to watch them kiss, sees Richie smile into her mouth, looking more relaxed than Eddie has seen him in a long time. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt. His wrists are bare. His wrists are clean.

When Eddie’s alone, he hears Richie’s voice in his head, spitting out, _you’re so selfish_.

You’re too late.

_How did you not know I was hurting?_

I was hurting, too, Eddie thinks, but it sounds weak even inside his head.

“I love you, but you know you fucked up,” Bill says.

“I know,” Eddie says miserably. “I can’t do anything about it. I don’t…”

Bill sighs and claps him on the shoulder. “Go see a therapist.”

Eddie puts it off. He knows he _should_ , in the same way his body ran cold when his first boyfriend said _I love you_ , the same way Richie’s first _we’re gonna get married someday, right, Eds?_ had eventually made his whole body seize in ways he doesn’t want to think about anymore.

The way he’d just smiled and agreed.

It’s hard to think about the person he’d been a year ago, the person smarting with unresolved depression and trust issues, and wondering why looking at Richie felt like vague wisps of something he couldn’t quite see or reach.

He isn’t sure he knows how to define it.

He isn’t sure if he wants to.

 

* * *

 

“Are you happy?” he overhears from around a corner.

“I think so,” Richie says. “It’s not…”

“Instantaneous?” someone fills in, and Eddie pictures Richie nodding.

“But everything’s been better,” he says, and Eddie can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “I feel like everything’s going to work out. She makes me really happy.”

Eddie turns and walks away.

 

* * *

 

_do you miss me?_

**of course i do**

 

* * *

 

He stays in. He turns desperately inwards. He cancels plans more than once, and eventually, people stop inviting him to things.

Some frantic, deeply irrational part of him thinks that maybe if he showcases his suffering, Richie will want him back.

He knows how asinine this thought is, but he doesn’t stop hoping.

When he can’t take it anymore—when all of his music screams Richie, Richie, Richie in his ears, and looking at the broken soul mark on his wrist starts to feel less like a reminder and more like an invitation for some kind of escape—he phones the student resources center and gets a referral.

It sits on his desk for a couple days. A couple days turn into a week, and still that little slip of paper sits there. Eddie tries not to look at it too hard.

 

“You can’t do this,” Bill says. “Consider this your intervention.”

“My intervention?” Eddie rolls over in bed. “What are you going to do?”

“You got that referral, didn’t you?” Bill picks up the little slip of paper and throws it. It drifts down onto Eddie’s face. “So get out of bed and call the number.”

Eddie lies in bed for a while longer after Bill leaves, staring up at the ceiling fan as it makes its way in sluggish circles. There are mugs pilfered from the dining hall piled on his bedside table, mugs and forks that he hasn’t gotten around to returning, two-week old laundry he hasn’t managed to shlep down to the laundry room, an apple lying on the floor he’s looked at for days and can’t seem to pick up.

He hasn’t washed his hair in four days, because he can’t quite muster up the effort to gather clothes, his towel, the shower caddy, can’t quite bring himself to just put on the damn shower shoes.

His lack of morning classes this semester means that for weeks, Eddie hasn’t gotten up before noon, leaving him feeling like his ceiling fan most days: sluggish, lazy, exhausted.

He gets out of bed and calls the number.

 

His new therapist is pleasant, an older woman who offers him tea and a blanket, and asks him what he thinks they need to work on.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Then we should get started right away, shouldn’t we?” she says.

 

She tells him he’s probably got depression. And isn’t that lovely, just the cherry on top of the whole cake? When his therapist tells him he’s probably had it for a while, undiagnosed, a million little things seem to fall into place, like his mouth being frozen when Richie asks him what’s wrong, staring at the ceiling until his eyes burn, breaking up with Richie on a Tuesday.

(He also thinks about, months ago, going out and looking for excitement, about the little frissons of nervousness from someone handing him their number, about going home and picking fights with Richie just because.)

“I think I might have trust issues,” Eddie manages, around a mouth that feels like cotton, and his therapist smiles encouragingly at him and tells him they can work on that.

 

* * *

 

_i don’t know how to do this_

_i don’t know how to live and know that_

_that i should be happy for you_

_because i should be_

_but i can’t be_

**i don’t expect you to be**

_god, it’s just_

_you’re happier and you’re fine and i feel like i’m imploding_

_i’m trying to string together enough dignity to be happy for you and i just can’t_

_i can’t do it_

 

* * *

 

“Come out tonight,” Bill says.

“Your boyfriend hates me,” Eddie says dully. “And Bev, and Ben, probably, and your other boyfriend.”

“Ben doesn’t hate you,” Bill says. “And neither does Bev.”

“Your soulmates,” Eddie says.

“They don’t hate you,” Bill says. “They just think you could’ve handled everything better.”

“Well, they’re right,” Eddie says, scooting his desk chair in further.

“Come on,” Bill says.

“I have a term paper,” Eddie says.

“Fine,” Bill says, shrugging. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

And he does, and this time, it being only three in the afternoon, Eddie doesn’t quite have the energy to turn him down, especially when Bill promises coffee.

They go and they sit in a Starbucks, not at the corner table. Eddie orders a drink that is more cream than coffee, and Bill gets tea, and they sit. Bill chatters for about half an hour about his soulmates—one of whom Eddie has only met once, but knows is Richie’s ex-something. Eddie sips at his coffee-flavored sugar and listens and tries not to feel so alone and pathetic, and it must show on his face because Bill pauses.

“Sorry,” he says, flushing.

“Don’t be,” Eddie says. “I can tell you’re happy, and I’m… glad.”

(Everyone is happy. Meanwhile, Eddie is sleeping in a twin bed that somehow feels too big and pitying himself the whole time.)

“Thanks, Eddie,” Bill says.

“Gotten any writing done lately?” Eddie asks.

“A little,” Bill says, and starts rambling on about a horror novel concept he’s come up with. Eddie listens, making appropriate sounds in all the right places, and feels ants creeping up his arms, uneasiness and anxiety he doesn’t know how to shake.

 

Hours turn into days, and Eddie continues to measure time by the playlists Richie listens to and the updates Richie posts on Snapchat. Everyone—and by everyone, he really means his therapist and Bill, what a size his world has shrunken to—tells him that this is okay. He calls Richie in a fit of pique one Monday afternoon, and, really, the less said about that, the better—he only wishes everything didn’t feel like _nothing_.

It doesn’t all click. Nothing magically snaps into place. Days turn into a week, and Eddie continues to count out the seconds as they fall by him. He walks around feeling mostly disjointed, mainly foggy. He drags his feet through the days as they stack up, and feels sad a lot of the time.

One week turns into two. In his spare time, he starts playing Minecraft again, something to get him through the days. It works. He has to make a new account, but he sinks forty hours into Minecraft before PayPal has even processed the thirty dollars the game itself costs.

He sees pictures: Richie and his girlfriend, Richie and Bev, just Richie, and every time, it feels like getting punched in the stomach, like the latest in a series of beatdowns designed specifically to smack Eddie Kaspbrak down.

It’s not true. He knows it’s not. He just doesn’t know what else to tell himself.

 

* * *

 

_were you lying when you said you missed me_

**when have i ever lied to you**

 

* * *

 

Despite himself, Eddie feels like he is holding onto something tenuous—not because he’s waiting for Richie, because he is not, but he feels like he’s holding onto something frayed and fragile, a string that looks like the bits of the faded soul mark on his wrist.

He doesn’t know how to come back to himself. He knows that this is the part where he should start healing, where days should blur into months and he should be getting better, but time continues to tick by his eyes, and he sits in his dorm room and feels… sick. Stuck.

His therapist tells him that this is okay. That the last time, he hadn’t really given himself enough time to process the breakup, and that this—this is real.

“What about Richie?” Eddie asks.

“Richie had time,” she says. “And he’s distracted. You’re not.”

“Are you saying I should distract myself?”

“No,” she says. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

He doesn’t feel real. He feels tattered, ragged, worn thin. Little bits of him seem to disappear day by day, and he almost wants to scream with the terror of it.

But even as little bits of himself disappear, something shows up, something intangible yet present. He just can’t put his finger on what it is. What he knows is that admitting things out loud makes them real, in the same way that lying to yourself for months is kind of the same thing as trying to move on.

He’s not even sure that trying again with Richie is what he needs anymore. If Richie came to him tomorrow, he doesn’t know what he’d say. He still sees Richie everywhere he goes, still wants to tell Richie everything, but the urgency that colored his need is gone, replaced with... something.

He doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t know if he wants to know.

 

* * *

 

Google search history:

_will i ever fall in love again_

_say anything girl in red lyrics_

_netflix shows without romance_

 

* * *

 

[The picture: Richie is standing with Bev, Ben, and his girlfriend. His arms are around her. He is grinning ear to ear. Bev is laughing, has her arm slung around Richie’s shoulders, her other hand tucked into Ben’s. The photo credit is Stan’s.]

 

* * *

 

PLAYLIST by Richie Tozier

dream about u

_in any universe you are my dark star_

 

* * *

 

Stardew Valley

_You’ve played: 74 hours_

_Last played: Today_

 

* * *

 

PLAYLIST by Eddie Kaspbrak

never go back

_i wanna leave but i can’t let go_

 

* * *

 

"Eddie," Ben says, "You know I'm still your friend, right?"

Eddie startles, closing his book. He'd thought he was alone in his corner of the library. Apparently not.

"...yes?" he says. "Why?"

"It seems like you've been having a rough couple of months," Ben says, and Eddie remembers that Ben also follows him on Spotify. "And normally you'd be in my inbox talking about it, but you're not, which means..."

"I just didn't think," Eddie fumbles over his words. "Just, because..."

"Whatever happened with Richie isn't my business," Ben says. Eddie blinks at him, once, twice, then slumps back into his chair.

"Isn't it?" he asks, not without bitterness. "Isn't it everyone's? I saw Bev last week and she gave me this nasty stare. Stan hasn't talked to me in at least half a year. You haven't talked to me in the last couple months."

"Phones work two ways," Ben says. Eddie subsides.

"Yeah, they do," he says.

"I just wanted to let you know," Ben says. "Because I know you're a bottler—"

"Am not," Eddie says.

"—that you've got people in your corner," Ben continues as if Eddie hadn't spoken. "More people than just Bill."

"Thanks, Ben," Eddie says. "I really appreciate it."

 

* * *

 

_Are you still watching "The Office"?_

 

* * *

 

Eddie picks up his phone and thumbs Richie’s contact, staring at the little picture. He entertains the idea of pressing the call button, letting it ring, and when Richie picks up, saying…

Saying what?

He imagines Richie’s voice, alto and hoarse with sleep, _“Why’d you call?”_

 _“I don’t know,”_ Eddie would say. _“Just felt like it.”_

 _“Okay,”_ Richie says in his head, smile in his voice. _“What have you been up to?”_

 _“Oh, stuff,”_ Eddie stretches out on his bed, still staring at the contact. The screen dims, and Richie vaporizes in his head. He is alone.

“I don’t care,” he reminds himself. “I shouldn’t care, and I don’t.”

He catches himself wondering how long Richie’s new relationship is going to last, and shakes his head.

“I don’t care,” he says again out loud.

 

* * *

 

Eddie clicks the ‘unfollow’ button before he can lose his nerve. Then he clicks it again. And again. And a fourth time.

In the end, he can’t bring himself to unfollow Richie on Spotify.

A couple days pass, and the compulsion to check Richie's name fades a little.

 

* * *

 

eddie: i want to smoke again but that’s such a bad idea

eddie: esp since last time i was literally falling over

Ben: Why smoke when you could watch this?

Ben: [link to a video titled "i n f i n i t e DRAGON DREAM FEET"]

eddie: what the hell am i watching

Ben: You’re welcome

 

* * *

 

eddie: will you come see this movie with me tho

Bill: sure, when?

eddie: ...tomorrow?

Bill: yeah, I don't have any plans

eddie: nice!

 

* * *

 

PLAYLIST by Eddie Kaspbrak

lips against the sky

_it always tastes good when i choose it for myself_

 

* * *

 

Fallout 4

_You’ve played: 8.2 hours_

_Last played: Yesterday_

 

* * *

 

Google search history:

_what episode of snl is john mulaney hosting_

_umbrella academy reviews_

_tap water drinking lyrics_

 

* * *

 

“How are you feeling?” his therapist asks. Eddie seriously considers the question.

“Bad,” he says. “Dreary."

“That’s alright,” she says. “Tell me about your week. Was it worse than last week?”

"No," he says. "It was better."

"Was it?" she asks. He has to think about it again.

"Yeah," he says. "Everything is getting a little better. Not by much, but..."

"That's good, Eddie," she says, and he finds himself believing her. "That's really good."

 

* * *

 

Eddie finds himself standing outside Richie’s door.

[The new group chat is named "MOVIE NIGHT". There are a bunch of sparkle emojis next to it.]

He stares at it, traces his eyes over the wood grain, willing himself to either knock or go away. He can’t manage to do either. He lifts his fist, then drops it.

“Eddie?”

[The picture: Eddie and Richie stand with their arms slung around one another. The picture has a timestamp from 2017.]

Eddie spins around. Richie is standing there alone, looking confused, and Eddie feels his chest constrict briefly, a little painful thunk, something falling into and out of place. “What are you doing here?”

“I, um…” Eddie flounders for something, then settles on the truth. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Richie says, moving towards the door. “Excuse me…”

[The picture: Richie’s lips are pressed to his girlfriend’s cheek as he gives a side eye to the camera, which he is holding out. She is laughing. Richie has captioned it with a bunch of yellow hearts.]

“Richie,” Eddie says.

“Yes?” Richie digs his keys out of his pocket, not looking at Eddie.

“Were you serious when you said that someday you wanted to start over?” he asks.

[The picture: Eddie is taking a group selfie at an angle with Ben and Bill. Ben is looking at his phone. Bill is pulling gross faces behind Ben's back. Eddie is smiling.]

“Of course I was,” Richie says. He unlocks the door. “But I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or five months from now, or five years from now.”

“No one does,” Eddie says on mute.

“No one does,” Richie repeats. He twists the doorknob. There is a little click, and Richie brings his eyes up to Eddie’s face. He eases the door open.

Eddie waits.

[The picture: Eddie is sitting on a bench. He is laughing, one of his hands caught in motion, blurred out of focus, a split second of captured joy. The photo is not credited.]

“Well?” Richie asks.

“What?” Eddie asks.

[The picture: Eddie is lying across Richie's lap, dozing off. Richie is smiling down at him. The picture credit is Bev's, and the timestamp is from 2017.]

If there is pain in Richie’s faint smile, it is nearly fainter than his voice when he asks, “Are you coming in?”

Unnoticed to both of them, the last remnants of the soul mark fade from Eddie’s wrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’d already decided i wasn’t going to write a second installment. writing about heartbreak is hard. it takes a lot out of you, even when your life is going seemingly well. and, honestly, once certain events in my life stopped happening, i stopped being able to identify with richie’s side of the story, and now, almost a whole year later, i find myself in eddie’s shoes, realizing that i was eddie all along. so although this might not be what anyone following this story wanted, or expected… this is what i could write. this is what i needed to write. what i wrote is not an ending, but i don’t know how this story ends. i just know that no matter what happens, life goes on. it goes at its own speed. and isn’t that all we can do, just to hang on?
> 
> maybe i’ll update again someday. and maybe i won’t. i think, for now, this story is finished, or as finished as it can be, given the circumstances. i wouldn’t know how to end it any other way.


End file.
